Aeneid 9, as Philip Hardie reminds us in the introduction
to this intelligent and richly informative commentary, is "the first book
proper of Virgil's 'Iliad.'" It tells how Turnus, in the absence of Aeneas
and at the urging of Iris, attacks the Trojans' camp and threatens to burn
their ships, which Cybele protects by turning them into nymphs. Nisus and
Euryalus set off to fetch Aeneas, kill many of the enemy and then are
killed, lauded by the poet, and mourned by Euryalus' mother. Next Numanus
Remulus insults the Trojans as effeminate, praises the hardy Italians, and
is killed in the first act of war by Ascanius, who is praised and then
forbidden to fight more by Apollo. Finally Pandarus and Bitias let Turnus
into the camp, where he fights prodigiously, but disastrously neglects to
let the other Italians into the camp, and finally is driven off.

Apart
from the Nisus and Euryalus episode, this book has attracted less
attention than most parts of the Aeneid, but now Hardie has
done much to make attractive the idea of focusing on Book 9 for all or
part of an undergraduate or graduate course, perhaps paired with Book 10
(in the light of Harrison's major 1991 commentary from Oxford, also
learned and mostly up-to-date1). H.
offers an excellent and
provocative introduction, and fine introductory notes to each section of
the text: both types of introduction are crammed full of useful
information and interesting, intelligent observations, even though below I
shall not offer assent to every claim. The commentary offers learned
and
useful comments on style (though without much help for students on meter,
on which there is no separate treatment2),
textual problems,3 etymological wordplay
(often but not always convincing), poetic and other
models (esp. Homer, Ennius, and the Alexandrians, but also lesser known
Republican sources in prose and poetry), later Silver Latin imitations of
Vergil (predictably, from the author of The Epic Successors of
Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition, Cambridge 1993),
the relation of each section to other parts of the book and poem, and the
role numerous passages in Book 9 play in heated debates about central
issues of interpretation of the poem as a whole.

The commentary
benefits
from H.'s secure command of a vast amount of scholarship, including the
work of de la Cerda (the learned Jesuit whose quirky but valuable 17th
century commentary on Vergil is relatively hard to consult in this
country), and the material on Book 9 from the planned commentary on 7-12
by Fordyce, of which only his notes on 7-8 have been published. H.'s
competence seems to extend to every skill required of the commentator, but
no section of the volume displays merely competence, for H. has
interesting and stimulating things to say about almost every aspect of
Book 9. In this way H.'s book outstrips the moderately helpful 1991
commentary of Gransden on Aeneid 11 for the same series:
where Gransden offered 76 pages of comment for about 915 lines of text, H.
provides 186 for about 818. The range of material covered is indicated by
the names of sections of the introduction: "Reworking Homer" (V.'s
imitation "is not a makeshift in order to construct a narrative with
another poet's materials, but a self-conscious and critical engagement
with the models that challenges the reader to compare and contrast earlier
and later texts in a process that forces us to rethink our interpretation
of both Homer and Virgil; the resulting combination of creation and
criticism is very much in the manner of the Alexandrian poets such as
Callimachus and Theocritus"), "Cities and Sieges" (on the ambivalence of
the Trojan camp, which is both a besieged city like Troy, which was
destined to lose, and a camp like that of the Greeks at Troy, who were
destined to win), "Solidarity and Division," "Young Men at War," "Defining
the Epic Hero," "Knowledge Human and Divine," and within the section on
Nisus and Euryalus, "the deaths of young warriors," "the danger of excess
and the taking of spoils," "symbolic underworlds," and
"amicitia and amor" (where the discussion of
ancient sexuality is a little thin).

H.'s comments on the
Nisus and Euryalus episode should attract much attention; I shall discuss
them first, then two parts of the commentary I find less successful. H.'s
treatment of Nisus and Euryalus has two strengths: he views them in the
context of other young warriors who die in the poem, and he refuses to
chose between conflicting interpretations where Vergil is irresolvably
ambiguous. With a brief nod to Vidal-Naquet and the Athenian
ephebeia,4 H. offers useful comments on the
many youthful combatants
in the poem who die before they reach maturity, including Nisus and
Euryalus, Pandarus and Bitias, Pallas, Lausus, Camilla, and eventually
Turnus himself. The difficulties that young men have with "the crucially
important challenge of growing up, of making the successful transition
from boyhood to adulthood," or "in making the perilous transition from
being a good hunter to being a good warrior," are important aspects of
both the Nisus and Euryalus episode, and the depiction of Ascanius in the
poem and especially in Book 9. Ascanius is the exception to the pattern of
young men destroyed by war, for Apollo restrains his potentially dangerous
enthusiasm (653-56), and he will survive to be the ancestor of the
Julians. A significant omission, however, from H.'s list of warriors dying
before maturity in the Aeneid is Marcellus, the nephew and
presumed heir to Augustus whose death is lamented at 6.868-86. That
Ascanius escapes the pattern allows readers to look from the Homeric past
towards the Augustan present, but that Marcellus does not survive hampers
our ability to look with confidence beyond the present.5 Still, H.'s
treatment of the dying young warriors is about as good as could be
expected for one who has not seen Mark Petrini's The Child and the
Hero: Coming of Age in Catullus and Vergil (forthcoming, Ann
Arbor), which offers excellent discussions of these and related issues.

In
more general terms, H.'s treatment of Nisus and Euryalus is successful in
maintaining a balance between competing interpretations: H. cites both
scholars who find the episode sublime, noble, and optimistic, and those
who find it "a paradigm of futile behavior and the tragedy of youth." He
comments: "As with the death of Turnus at the end of the last book, such
contradictory judgments are provoked by Virgil's practice of constructing
complex moral, and even metaphysical problems, easy answers to which are
deliberately withheld." H. is a master of the techniques of Knauer and
Clausen and is also able to relate observations about models directly to
questions of interpretation: "one of the reasons for the difficulty in
deciding on the meaning of the episode is precisely the conflating of many
passages in earlier literature." The introduction notes that when Vergil
promises Nisus and Euryalus eternal fame "the reasons for this
commendation are made no clearer than is the exact respect in which the
two are declared to be fortunati." The commentary offers an
excellent discussion both of the "shock" of the phrase fortunati
ambo "after the tale of the unfortunate pair (infelix
390, 430)," and of larger themes: "the futile tragedy of these two
adolescents exemplifies a particularly obsessive and memorable set of
themes in V.'s poetry.... The Aen. as a whole tells of suffering and
heroism in the remote past whose fruits endure to the present
(imperium Romanum), but in his final comment on the Nisus and
Euryalus story we see a more Homeric idea ..., that in the end the only
lasting result of heroic struggle and death is undying
kleos." When at 493-94 Euryalus' mother asks the Italians to
kill her for the sake of pietas H. offers the telling comment
that "at the end of an episode which resolves around various relationships
of pietas the only variety still available is a negative
one;" he then cites Egan on how "tensions in the use of
pietas here foreshadow the problems raised by the killing of
T." at the end of the poem.

Where H. stands on the problems raised
by the
killing of Turnus at the end of the Aeneid, however, is a
difficult question. H.'s first book, Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and
Imperium (Oxford 1986), leaves little doubt that Aeneas, as
champion of the side whose imperium is as just and as
divinely sanctioned as Jupiter's rule over the cosmos, is completely
justified in striking down Turnus, the enemy of the gods and of the
Romans. The Epic Successors of Virgil, however, shows that
ambivalence about the ending of the Aeneid is both
understandable, and a feature of much of the poetry of the first century.
Scholars fond of dividing up the Iliad and
Odyssey might suggest that Cosmos and Imperium
and Epic Successors were written by different authors -- who
then collaborated on the commentary on Book 9. One could almost speak of
the "two voices" of Philip Hardie. At times, as in much of the
introduction and in his treatment of Nisus and Euryalus, H. displays a
high tolerance for ambiguity and ambivalence, and admirable concern for
balance and for sticking to the evidence in the discussion of
controversial issues. On at least two issues, however, H. is less
successful in avoiding a role like that of an advocate or prosecuting
attorney, for his commentary tilts the presentation of the evidence
towards a less ambiguous and more certainly negative view both of the
Italians, as compared to their foes the Trojans, and of Turnus. On both
these issues H. strives for fairness, but falls short; possibly this is a
result of simply having so much to talk about, and insufficient space for
satisfying explorations of these complex issues.

The cultural
connotations
of the presentation of the Trojans and Italians are explored mainly in the
context of the episode in which Ascanius kills Numanus Remulus, both in
the introduction, where H.'s treatment is somewhat cramped and confusing,
and in the commentary, which I believe does not deliver the balanced
picture promised by the introduction. In the introduction H. is rather
hard to follow: he observes that Numanus' speech and death are related to
the "the problem of defining the ideal Italian and Roman national
identity," and to Augustus' "search for a renewed Roman identity after the
chaotic passage of the civil wars." He also sees connections between
Numanus' criticism of the over-civilized Trojans and the cultural
sophistication of Romans of V.'s day. But Numanus' idealized picture of
the Italians is said to be flawed: "an ideology that attempts to mold the
future through a return to an imagined past is doomed to internal
contradictions, both because of the impossibility of recreating primitive
rural values in a highly urbanized society, and because such idealization
of ancient 'virtues' are always partial, blind to the less attractive
aspects of past societies." A footnote citing the call to Victorian
virtues in 1980's Britain does not help me know whether the sentence I
have just quoted is Vergil's view, or Hardie's, or how it all relates to
Augustus: is Numanus voicing Augustan propaganda, of which Vergil is
critical? This is too tough a topic to handle in one page in an
introduction, and I would like to see H. tackle it at greater length in a
less restrictive format.

I do like his next sentence, though: "The
difficulty that critics experience in deciding how qualified our
admiration for the Italians in the Aeneid should be, and how
favorable we should be towards Trojan civilization, reflects this
ideological tension within the Virgilian text." But in commentary on the
Ascanius-Numanus episode, unlike that on Nisus and Euryalus, H. has little
difficulty in deciding which culture should be admired, and which held at
arm's length: he works hard, often with strained or unconvincing
arguments, to convince readers that they should dismiss Numanus' criticism
of the Trojans, and should refrain from sympathizing with what he says
about the Italians. For example, on 595 he observes that digna atque
indigna relatu resembles part of 4.190, (Fama) pariter facta
atque infecta canebat, and claims that "the considerable overlap
between what Rumour (with the credulous Iarbas) and Numanus say about the
Trojans should prevent us from too readily giving credence to the latter's
words." It is hard to imagine a Roman reader or audience reacting to the
passage in this way: actually doubting or discounting what Numanus says
because it slightly resembles what Fama said in 4. Numanus'
speech is described in the introduction as "tendentious rhetoric" which
leads to his death, as if he would not have been killed if he had stuck to
more thoroughly verifiable claims ("you lousy Trojans stole Helen, and
lost to the Greeks"). That Numanus is killed with the help of the gods
might suggest that what he says is wrong, but there is little in the
Aeneid to indicate that only the bad or misinformed die (cf.
esp. 2.428 dis aliter visum). On 603-13 H. notes that
Numanus' "picture [of the Italians] is one of 'hard primitivism' ...; many
details would no doubt have struck the Roman reader as entirely
praiseworthy, but on some points they would have felt disquiet," but about
the only place that H. suggests much disquiet is on vivere
rapto on 612-13. On 598-620 H. claims that "the model of Evander's
account of Italian history at 8.314-32 suggests the need for the
replacement of the primitive rawness of Italy with a new Saturnian age,"
but it is easier to see in Evander's words the idea that each new arrival
in Italy has brought a worse race, and it is hard to associate the Trojans
of Books 7-12 with anything Saturnian as they fight Saturnian Juno's
Saturnian people, despite Anchises' reference at 6.792-95 to Augustus'
refounding of the golden/Saturnian age.6 The
campaign to direct the
reader's sympathy continues with the discussion of Ascanius: on 615
audacibus adnue coeptis: "the word audax is
particularly associated with Turnus and his followers (3, 519 nn.).
Ascanius is careful to ask for divine approval of his own youthful
boldness." The comment implies a difference between Turnus and Ascanius
because Ascanius carefully asks for divine sanction, but in the passage
cited at 9.3 audax Turnus is probably to be thought of as
waiting for a divine sign, which he gets, from Iris. On 638 crinitus
Apollo, H. notes that the phrase is from a play of Ennius, in a
context where Apollo is said to be shooting the Furies: "this may add
point to 621 dira [Numanus is said to be dira
canentem]; Ascanius kills the Fury-like Numanus with the weapon of
Apollo." Numanus is "Fury-like" because the things he says are
dirus and the boy who kills him is helped by a god described
by a phrase used by Ennius of Apollo killing Furies? H. is grasping at
straws here.

Three larger issues must be addressed. First, if
Vergil means
for us to reject what Numanus or Iarbas or Amata says about the Trojans,
and what Numanus and others say about the Italians, why does he let these
voices be a part of his poem? Why relate things that are indigna
relatu? Are they fully contained and neutralized when (rather
indirectly) labeled incorrect? Is the reader effectively warned not to
sympathize with Numanus because of his death? If you're writing a national
epic about your city's and your emperor's Trojan heritage, why not just
leave out all mention of Trojans being effeminate or decadent? Second,
what about what Book 12 tells us about the Trojans, Italians, and
contemporary Romans? I believe H. never mentions the subordination of the
Trojan to the Italian in the compromise between Jupiter and Juno in Book
127; this and the death of Marcellus,
discussed above, are the two
supplements to H.'s commentary I think most crucial for students reading
Book 9 in isolation. Even if Ascanius' divinely sanctioned killing of
Numanus to some extent suggested rejection of his views, the compromise of
Jupiter and Juno casts a different light back on the last six books, and
on the resistance of Turnus, Juno, and Numanus. Because their side gets to
contribute the most to the Trojan/Italian amalgam, their resistance
becomes a part of the divine plan, a part of what made contemporary Rome:
without it everything would be different.8
Third, is H. right in
saying that Numanus' speech and death are related to the "the problem of
defining the ideal Italian and Roman national identity" or
that "the poem as a whole ... seeks to define the ideal
characters of Romans and Italians" (my emphasis each time)? Why must it be
"ideal"? When Vergil begins writing the Aeneid the Romans
have been through a century of great troubles. Thoughtful Romans of the
day, like Sallust or the Horace of Epodes 16 or 7 (7.16-17:
acerba fata Romanos agunt / scelusque fraternae necis) a
little earlier, might well have asked "why are we the way we are? -- why
all
the violence and civil war?" They might well have looked to the joint
Trojan/Italian heritage of their mythology as the source of powerful
positive and negative factors that both allowed them to conquer the
Mediterranean, and saddled them with decades of intermittent civil strife.
Both the Numanus episode, and much of the poem, make better sense not as
an attempt to define ideals, but as instead a probing meditation on both
the strengths and weaknesses of the Roman people: not the "ideal," but the
"real," character of the Romans.

For Turnus too the introduction
promises
a sophisticated treatment of a figure with strong positive features, but
some negative ones as well, chiefly (in the introduction) the sense that
he is a lesser man than Aeneas, and that he shares with the other youthful
figures in Book 9 a tendency for rash behavior. The commentary offers a
number of acute observations, many of them new to me, on both positive and
negative features of the presentation of Turnus, but consistently
highlights the negative and downplays the positive, as though there were
something to be gained from showing that Turnus is not like you, me, and
our hero Aeneas. On 3 audacem, H. rightly observes that "a
rash boldness characterizes all [of Turnus'] actions in this book," but
why not tell us that the word is used of Ascanius later in this book, of
Pallas in Book 8, and of the poet himself twice in the
Georgics (some of this information appears later in the
commentary)? Especially useful could have been Servius' comment on
audax Pallas at 8.110, where he defines audacia
as virtus sine fortuna, and offers a specific cross-reference
to Turnus and 9.3. Such a reference could have been helpful to H. in
developing in the commentary the balanced picture of Turnus the
introduction promised, and could have led to a string of comments on ways
in which Turnus is similar to Aeneas except for being on the wrong side of
history (as well as, to be sure, being rather more consistently impetuous
and vicious).9 Instead H. seems to bend
over backwards to read
negative associations into the presentation of Turnus. After the visit of
Iris at the start of the book, H. asks whether Turnus might not be "seeing
things;" the attempt is made to suggest that divine commands given to
Turnus are less authoritative and less worthy of being followed than those
given to Aeneas. The attempt fails. Other scholars have realized that the
only way to condemn Turnus freely is to explain that divine commands to
Aeneas are real, those to Turnus are somehow imaginary, or allegorical
representations of his own nasty inner self, especially the Allecto scene.
H. does not go far on this road (to which Feeney's Gods in
Epic has now built formidable barriers), but he occasionally gives
aid to those who would make such feeble arguments, as though the tradition
of vilifying Turnus were simply too strong for him to resist. On 24
oneravitque aethera votis H. suggests that "there is a
suggestion that Turnus' prayers are a tiresome burden," but in 10.619-20,
when Juno wants to save him from Aeneas, she reminds Jupiter of his
extensive offerings, with similar language: tua larga / saepe manu
multisque oneravit limina donis, and Jupiter in part grants her
request, with no sign that he is annoyed by the offerings. On 58
lustrat H. briefly notes the similarity of this to 8.230-31
(ter totum fervidus ira / lustrat Aventini montem), and other
passages from the Hercules-Cacus story. But in contrast to his excellent
and thorough handling of parallels to Hannibal, which put Turnus in the
position of Rome's assailant, H. does not draw the obvious conclusion,
that associations with Hercules cast Turnus in the role of Italy's
defender. On the omen of the Magna Mater and the changing of the ships
into nymphs, some of H.'s notes cite passages from the omens of Venus
interpreted by Aeneas in 8.520-36, but he never makes clear the extensive
resemblances between the two scenes, which suggest that the experiences of
Turnus and Aeneas are in some ways quite similar.10

In
discussing Turnus' claim, sunt et mea fata mihi, H. says that
"T. almost redefines fate as 'that which is morally fitting', or even as
'that which lies in the strength of my weapons'; the implied rejection of
a supernatural sanction brings him close to Mezentius, the
contemptor divum." The comparison to Mezentius is groundless;
we need to mention Allecto here, whose telling Turnus that Juno told her
to speak to him (ipsa palam fari omnipotens Saturnia iussit,
7.427) gives him every right to say sunt et mea fata mihi.
On
138 coniuge praerepta H. says "in fact Lavinia is not even
T.'s sponsa," but should also cite Allecto's words at
7.423-24, rex tibi coniugium et quaesitas sanguine dotes /
abnegat,
externusque in regnum quaeritur heres. Surely Turnus' problem is
not that he is contemptuous of the gods, like Mezentius, but that he is
too trusting of gods who are deceiving him.

H.'s explanation of
passages
that suggest conflicting viewpoints of Turnus is unsatisfying, but he does
usually lay out the information necessary for the fuller, more
sophisticated treatment from which he shies away. In introducing the
Pandarus and Bitias passage (672-755) H. nicely explains how all of Book 9
leads up to the tense and dramatic scene in which Turnus gets inside the
Trojan camp and fights alone before finally retreating. He also provides a
wealth of information on Homeric models, on a likely and important Ennian
model, and on associations of Turnus with Achilles, Hector, Pyrrhus in
Aen. 2, Hannibal almost sacking Rome, and, most interesting,
Jupiter fighting a gigantomachy against the enemies of the gods. H.'s
discussion of gigantomachy builds on Cosmos and Imperium, in
which it is most often Aeneas and the Trojans who seem to be fighting a
gigantomachy against the enemies of the gods. In Book 9, however, many
passages point towards a different reading: cf. H.'s comments on 705: "as
figurative wielder of Jupiter's thunderbolt T. strikes down the 'Giant'
Bitias;" 733: "the fulmina of 733 suggest the identification
of T. with Jupiter striking down his enemies;" and 762, where T. kills a
Gyges, who bears "the name of one of the hundred-handers." H. is excellent
on the many passages that cast Turnus as the enemy of Rome or of the gods,
but he never satisfactorily explains these other passages that instead
suggest that Turnus is on the right side, and that he is properly
defending Italy against invaders. Instead he chooses a rather easy way
out: "there is irony here; at the end of the poem it is Aen. who with a
figurative thunderbolt prostrates the enemy of the gods, T." But is irony
the right word for the phenomenon here? Is Vergil saying that Turnus is on
the side of the gods, but he doesn't mean it? How exactly are readers of
Book 9 to react: are they to see that the poet is associating Turnus with
Jupiter fighting the enemies of the gods, but resolve to keep that
identification only tentative just in case Aeneas might use a
thunderbolt-like weapon in the last thirty lines of the poem? Court
TV tells us that jurors in an American courtroom are admonished by
a judge "not to form any conclusions about the case until you've heard all
the evidence," but it is hard to expect this of readers. Something more
complicated than irony is going on. Cf. too H.'s comments on 815-18, on
Turnus' final leap into the Tiber: "it is impossible here not to think of
the famous leap of the great Roman patriot Horatius Cocles into the
Tiber ...: T., thoughout this book cast in the role of a would-be sacker
of
Rome, at the end surprisingly takes on the role of one of the most famous
saviors of the city." Some of us may be less surprised than others. H.
also discusses the question Servius reports was asked by "many," why the
Tiber, whose god is on A's side, saves Turnus at the end of the book:
"[Servius'] solution, that the river reserves his defeat for the glory of
Aen. will satisfy few. Others see a sign that T. is a favourite of the
gods of the Italian countryside (cf. Faunus' favour at 12.766-82)." H.
offers no answer of his own. But he has provided much evidence that the
Aeneid is written is such a way that some passages urge the
reader to sympathize with Aeneas and the Trojans, while others stress the
admirable or sympathetic qualities of Turnus and the Italians. This
phenomenon may have something to do with the historical experience of the
Romans and Italians not only in the civil wars between first Caesar and
Pompey, and then Antony and Octavian, but also the Italian or Social wars
a few decades earlier. It must also be related to "Virgil's practice of
constructing complex moral, and even metaphysical problems, easy answers
to which are deliberately withheld," to quote the formulation H. presents
in discussing Nisus and Euryalus, but applies only inconsistently
throughout the commentary.

My last few paragraphs have focused on
ways in
which I believe the commentary falls short of its goals, but it must be
stressed that these are extremely high goals, and I wish to end as I
began, with praise for H.'s considerable accomplishment in producing not
only a useful commentary, but also one that is original and consistently
interesting and provocative. The same piercing intelligence, command of
Greek and Latin literature, and refusal to be satisfied with tired old
formulations that are apparent in his earlier books and in his numerous
articles make this commentary a most valuable contribution, and I look
forward eagerly to further discussions by H. of the issues raised by
Aeneid 9. As much as anyone working on Latin poetry today H.
is unpredictable, with a rare tendency simply to go in the direction the
evidence before him indicates on any issue. When you see his name in a
table of contents or card catalogue, take and read.

NOTES

[1] Though see
the thorough review of R.F. Thomas, Vergilius 38 (1992)
134-44, for Harrison's tendency to explain away features of that book that
might reflect poorly on Aeneas, and so "to protect Aeneas, to dissuade us
from seeing him, on occasion, in the same way that we see Turnus,
Mezentius, or other such figures." For Hardie's complementary tendency, at
times, to highlight negative aspects of the presentation of Turnus, see
below.

[2] H.'s comments on meter are learned
enough, but he often cites
other commentators (Norden, Austin, Williams) rather than explaining
concepts like trochaic caesura or half-lines; students will need these
commentaries on a reserve shelf. There are helpful glosses, however, of
such terms as synizesis and enallage, and much translated Greek. But 383
is simply described as a "golden line," with references to Williams and
Wilkinson; better to say what a golden line is, especially since the note
on line 535 will say "a golden line (383 n.)".

[3] H. prints a number of
different readings from Mynors' OCT, some of the "you say tomato ..."
variety, others with a bit of evidence from later imitators, or with a
preference for Servius' apparent text or for readings attested only later
or less often: 11 not manum, collectos but manum et
collectos, 54 not clamorem but clamore,
68 not in aequum but the more dificult in aequor
(citing possible imitation by Valerius Flaccus), 119 not
aequora but aequore, 236 not soluti
but sepulti (w/ Murgia's argument about the scholiastic
tradition), 369 not regi but regis w/ Servius,
380 not aditum but abitum w/ Servius, 432 not
transadigit but the less well attested
transabiit, 485 not data but date,
514 not Mynors' iuvet but iuvat, 584 not
Martis but matris, 646 not forma
but formam (w/ both deemed possible), 773 not
unguere but tingere (w/ possible imitation by
Lucan), 782 not quaeve but quae iam (w/ both
deemed possible), 789 not pugna but the "Grecizing genitive"
pugnae. H. punctuates differently in 47-50, 134, 289, 548,
and 810, and brackets line 151; he also offers clear and intelligent
discussions of many passages where he agrees with Mynors, but sees the
problems that have led others to suggest a different reading.

[4] Besides the original Vidal-Naquet article that H.
cites, it would have
been helpful to cite also Vidal-Naquet's later discussion, "The Black
Hunter Revisited," PCPS 32 (1986) 124-44.

[5] Cf. G.
Williams, Technique and Ideas in the "Aeneid" (New Haven
1983) 214, who says that the Marcellus passage shows that "the future
beyond Augustus has collapsed." On 276 venerande puer, H.
comments that this is "a remarkable phrase bordering on oxymoron," but
doesn't mention the like-sounding phrase miserande puer, used
by Aeneas of Lausus at 10.825 and of Pallas at 11.42, and by Anchises of
Marcellus at 6.882, or iuvenis memorande, used of Lausus by
the poet at 10.793. The similar-sounding phrases help to link Ascanius and
the others; they are the only vocative gerundives in the Aeneid,
except for the miserande iaceres of
10.327, used of Cydon, the lover of the young Clytium.